Creating new 'Custom Styles' from Tyros 5's "40 Styles w/ Audio Drum Loops

[scottyee]

On another forum (Synthzone), Marcus wrote: 

"you are not limited to just 40 Audio Styles on the Tyros 5. I look at it more like 40 Audio Style Parts to work with to create hundreds of Custom or Hybrid type styles to your liking with the Assembly and other modifications in a Style Creator. The borrowed style parts must be musically suitable and same time signature. A new Audio style can be created with suitable borrowed parts of any of the Tyros 5 styles and thousands you can import as long as you start with the Audio Style and Audio Part you want."

Wow, I hope it's true that we'll be able to actually SAVE any of the 40  audio styles (including retaining the audio drum loops) as a new 'custom style' and also be able to import (via T5's (assembly feature) other style parts as we already can do with (non audio drums) styles.
Perhaps someone here that already has a Tyros 5 can test this out and report back their findings. Doing this will benefit  all potential Tyros 5 owners.

Scott 

[hammer]

Hi Scott,
I have a S950 which includes Audio styles.  What I have found is the only use for them during a live gig is to use them directly from the preset categories or to save those you wish to use to the USER area.   Unless Yamaha has changed this the Audio styles will not save to any external device.   This makes it very difficult to
create gig sets which include Audio styles.   

As for creating other styles from them - I have not tried to do this.  But, I have changed the OTS of several Audio styles and saved those changes to the USER area.   

Won't know until my T5 arrives how this will work with the built-in hard drive.

Deane

[jwyvern]

Hi Scott,
Ty5 only lets me paste Audio styles to User, anything else is regarded as "external" and not allowed.
Cheers John

[hammer]

John,
This is exactly the way my S950 works and I use very few of the Audio styles because of it.
I was hoping with the T5 we would be able to save Audio styles to the hard drive.
What a bummer!!!  Yamaha wants to promote the T5 as a "Pro" tool but with this limitation it still remains a home player arranger.  Oh yes - I do have one on order. 

Deane

[Bill Grosse]

So John,

Is it the same that you can not record the audio styles to MP3 or wave as on the S950?

Bill G

[EileenL]

Yes you can record Audio in the audio recorder and it works very well.

You can mix and match your style parts the same as we did on our other keyboards but you can only save to use section. This makes sure you can not give these styles away. Of course this may change in the future who knows.

[DrakeM]

The audio styles are great for playing that one or two songs they were designed to play. But as pointed out the audio type of style is useless to the gigging world. The fewer of them in the keyboard the better. I have not use any of the them in my S950 so far.

[hammer]

Drake,
I completely agree with your post.   I use ONLY THREE of the Audio styles on my S950 at gigs and they have been tweaked and saved
to the USER area.   For the tunes I play with them they are really great but it is a royal pain using them in a gig set.  In my gig set song titles
I put little stars in the names of songs that I can use the Audio Styles with and that helps some.

I'am like Drake - forget the Audio Styles and provide top notch normal styles that we can work with.

Deane

[tomtomsf]

... but you can only save to user section. This makes sure you can not give these styles away. Of course this may change in the future who knows.

Eileen,

Is that true for all the styles on the Tyros 5 or only the audio styles?
I would think you have to be able to save styles to hard disk and/or USB or else there isn't much point in customizing any of them.

Tom G.

[Bill Grosse]

Tom,

Only saving to "USER" area on keyboard is the way it is on the S950.
And it is the same with the T5 according to EileenL

Bill G

[tomtomsf]

Tom,

Only saving to "USER" area on keyboard is the way it is on the S950.
And it is the same with the T5 according to EileenL

Bill G

Really, Bill? For all the styles? This doesn't seem right. If you can only save a style to user, that is a huge drawback of the Tyros 5. If you want to modify a style for a certain song, you cannot save it out to the hard drive or USB? The User memory area is not large. You will quickly run out of space.

Tom G.

[Joe H]

Yamaha has provided 124MB expansion memory for "Premium Audio Style" Packs.  I can hardly wait to see the price on those babies.      



Joe H

[hammer]

Tom,
It is only the Audio Styles that can only be saved to the USER area.  All other styles
act just like they did on all other Yamaha keyboards.

Deane

[tomtomsf]

Tom,
It is only the Audio Styles that can only be saved to the USER area.  All other styles
act just like they did on all other Yamaha keyboards.

Deane

Thanks, Deane! Had me worried there. Still it's seems a shame that the audio styles cannot be saved outside of the User area. Rather limiting, I guess. Maybe Yamaha will change that with an OS update or on the next Tyros 6.

Tom G.

[hammer]

Tom,
I don't "load up" my USER area.  In the Tyros 3 I owned I suddenly had styles changing Tempos during live performances and all sorts of other odd things happening.   Turned out, on the Tyros 3 if you filled up the USER area it created these kinds of problems.  Really can't have that happening on live gigs.   So, I use the USER area very sparingly on all the Yamaha keyboards.

Deane

[tomtomsf]

Yes, Deane. I recall hearing about problems if you had too much stored in the User memory. I keep some favorite styles in mine but not many.

I was hoping Yamaha had increased the amount of User memory on the new T5 but it is the same as the T4. It would have been nice to have a larger User memory area in the Tyros 5. Especially if that's the only place you can save modified audio styles. I guess players will use them as they are, or not use them much.

Tom G.

[EileenL]

Another reason for this is you can't give the styles away or they would be on every forum by now like the IDC ones have. Also they would not work at all well in some keyboards.

[Bill Grosse]

Yes, but it sure would be nice to be able to swap custom audio styles with other T5 owners at least. 

Bill G

[Marcus]

On another forum (Synthzone), Marcus wrote:  

"you are not limited to just 40 Audio Styles on the Tyros 5. I look at it more like 40 Audio Style Parts to work with to create hundreds of Custom or Hybrid type styles to your liking with the Assembly and other modifications in a Style Creator. The borrowed style parts must be musically suitable and same time signature. A new Audio style can be created with suitable borrowed parts of any of the Tyros 5 styles and thousands you can import as long as you start with the Audio Style and Audio Part you want."

Wow, I hope it's true that we'll be able to actually SAVE any of the 40  audio styles (including retaining the audio drum loops) as a new 'custom style' and also be able to import (via T5's (assembly feature) other style parts as we already can do with (non audio drums) styles.
Perhaps someone here that already has a Tyros 5 can test this out and report back their findings. Doing this will benefit  all potential Tyros 5 owners.

Scott  

Hi Scott

That was my quote; the same Marcus resides at both forums. From what I read in the Tyros 5 manuals, as long as you start with the Audio Style in Style Creator you can mix up any Style part borrowed from other suitable styles. The only issue I didn't realize was that the new Audio style can only be save to the Tyros 5 User folder. Memory can be an issue, but as on the Tyros 4 there was no problem saving to a Hard Drive folder with any non-audio styles.

For the amount of audio hybrid styles I would probably create might be fairly low and I could dedicate the Tyros 5 User drive for only Audio styles saves. On my Tyros 4, I think the User drive can hold about 100 styles. My guess is the Audio Part of the style doesn't even get saved to the User Drive. What I am saying is, probably only the midi information directing the Tyros 5 to play the audio part, not the actual memory that contains the Audio part. So my guess is you can still get at 100 Hybrid Audio styles in the User Drive. For me, that plenty if I am correct. I still don't get my Tyros 5 till mid December in order to try.

For me, I still see no real issues unless only Audio hybrid styles must be saved to the User Drive, but my interpretation is Yamaha is only protecting their Audio Styles or modified Audio Styles for this purpose. It was brought up here regarding the PSR-S950 that I was interested in when it came out, but I was turned off when I realized the Audio Parts of the style would not record to the Hard Disk Recorder. Pleased to hear, you can record away with the Tyros 5, the the other issue discussed at that time was certain Audio parts would not work very well with switched parts from other styles because the recording environment, reverb, ambiance etc., would not match.

This was recently brought up in the other forum. With some work you can always change the DSPs effects and other parameters to approximate the Audio part environment to make all the assembled style parts match fairly well with the Audio part. I need to get my hands on my Tyros 5 to experiment in these areas. For those who like to experiment and create new sounds and styles, the Tyros 5 arranger will certainly satisfy. Another trick I use, well not really a trick, but if there is a nice Premium Style to purchase from Yamaha I sometimes buy a suitable style, not for the style itself, but a really good style part I can extract in Style Creator to create my own custom style. Yamaha does the best programming for the Yamaha Style parts and implementation of the fantastic SA and mega style voices. I bought the Tyros arrangers because I want the best to suit my needs.

Marcus

[tomtomsf]

Another reason for this is you can't give the styles away or they would be on every forum by now like the IDC ones have. Also they would not work at all well in some keyboards.

Yes, Eileen. That might keep the new audio styles from being shared on the internet. But that also reduces their useability if they are not easily modified and saved. That's what the PSR-950 owners are telling us here. Probably why Yamaha only put 40 of them in there.

Tom G.

[Marcus]

Yes, but it sure would be nice to be able to swap custom audio styles with other T5 owners at least. 

Bill G

A Tyros 5 owner can alway create a brand new style with the original audio part. You cannot share the audio style or audio part with another Tyros 5, but you can share the new style excluding only the audio part. Then that Tyros 5 can then open up the specified Audio Style that the new style parts belongs to and reassemble all the new style parts from the shared style to the audio part and you now have the same modified Audio Style on both Tyros 5s. If that made any sense.

Marcus

[Bill Grosse]

Marcus,

Have you verified this? 

Bill G

[Marcus]

Marcus,

Have you verified this?  

Bill G

No I haven't. I will report back mid December after I try and have my Tyros 5. I just need a totally new imported Style into the Tyros 5 and try to assemble all its style part to a selected Audio Style in Style Creator. If it works, then as long as the original Audio style exist on both Tyros 5, you just share the imported modified style minus the audio part and reassemble after the import.

There is a possibility that Yamaha will only allow reassembly of the Audio Styles with only the other Panel Styles, but I can't see why there would be this restriction. If there is no restriction, beyond the issue with the User Drive, it would open up a lot of access to superb quality styles plus modify any new expansion Audio Styles Yamaha makes for the Tyros 5.

Can't wait to get my hooks into the Tyros 5, of course beyond just Style Creator.

Marcus

[tomtomsf]

I was wondering if it is possible that Yamaha will sell additional audio styles? Can a Tyros 5 load a completely new audio style? If so, then Yamaha could create dozens of new audio styles for the Tyros 5 to sell. Owners could buy them from yamahamusicsoft and load them in their keyboard. If that is possible, then new T5 owners would be able to increase the number of audio styles they have, as long as they are willing to pay for them.

Tom G.

[Bill Grosse]

Well Marcus, please forgive this, but won't they just end up with a style they already have? 

Bill G







Just kidding! 

[Marcus]

I was wondering if it is possible that Yamaha will sell additional audio styles? Can a Tyros 5 load a completely new audio style? If so, then Yamaha could create dozens of new audio styles for the Tyros 5 to sell. Owners could buy them from yamahamusicsoft and load them in their keyboard. If that is possible, then new T5 owners would be able to increase the number of audio styles they have, as long as they are willing to pay for them.

Tom G.

That is my understanding, to buy Premium Yamaha content including new Audio Style Expansion Packs. Just as you cannot make SA2 Premium Voices yourself or copy, only Yamaha can create new Audio Styles to buy.

The Premium content I bought so far was worth the cost to me for both my Tyros 3 and Tyros 4. The quality and instrument realism is second to none. I always waited for the 20% off specials. Once paid for, many previous Premuim content is reloadable and sometimes updated for the replacement Tyros at no additional cost. Like the SA2 Pan Flutes for my Tyros 3 were reloaded to my Tyros 4 and hopefully available to download again for my Tyros 5. You only pay once.

Marcus

[pjd]

Hi folks --

Here's a few thoughts that are pure _speculation_. Hands-on experience and experiments would really tell...

I suspect that the audio in the audio styles is internally beat sliced (a la Reason and a zillion other DAWs). Beat slicing divides an audio track into small, beat-sized sound snippets. Each snippet is played back individually at full speed (e.g., 44.1KHz), but the snippet start times are adjusted by tempo and/or sync'ed with MIDI events. Beat slicing avoids some of the sonic disadvantages of time stretching. Time stretching introduces sonic DSP artifacts with extreme changes in tempo.

Thus, creating new audio for an audio style is not so trivial as recording a new track. Beat slicing software is pretty good at finding beats in percussion tracks -- not so good at regular pitched instruments, legato passages, etc. Even sliced percussion tracks may need some manual fix-ups. Yamaha have probably invested a lot of time in the audio tracks for audio styles. Multipad audio would need to be beat sliced (or periodically re-sync'ed) to avoid drift.

Anyway, I'm interested in hearing your ideas and comments!

Thanks -- pj

[scottyee]

Thanks to everyone for your informative replies.  

It's disappointing to learn that 'styles that utilize audio loops' can only be saved to USER Memory as Tyros5's internal user storage (User Memory) is  only  6.7 MB!  

As far as a reasoning that Yamaha did it to restrict sharing these styles with others, I believe the actual audio drum loop  file(s) isn't included in the style file, but resides in ROM in the keyboard, and that the audio styles simply call them up when the style is selected, and that if these styles are shared with non-Tyros 5 owners, the audio drum track would not be recognized or heard.

Yamaha style file size ranges from 30-120kb each, so based on an 80kb sized style, User Memory would only hold 80 custom styles. Extremly limiting IMO. If Yamaha insists on restricting 'custom styles that utilize audio loops' to only be saved in USER memory, they should have simply increased Tyros 5's USER Memory capacity to at least 100MB or more, as currently 16GB flash memory sticks sell for less than $10 (US) each. Go figure.  

That said, perhaps Yamaha might consider (if enough T5 owners voice their request for it)  releasing an OS Update to allow Styles utilizing audio drum loops to be saved on the HD or USB stick too,  as all their other styles currently are.  

Scott

[Bill Grosse]

Scott,

Yamaha can't do that because if they do, then anyone will be able to make styles that utilize those audio drums.
Once you know the code to call them up, anyone can then do it - just like knowing the MIDI codes for calling up voices. 

BTW - Those styles saved to the User Area really are very small and don't take up much space.

Bill G

[Joe H]

I'd like to get some clarification on the idea that MIDI drum kits cannot be assigned to audio styles.  This has been accomplished with S950 audio styles. The style was then exported and playable on other keybaords.

Has this capability been eliminated on the Tyros 5?

Joe H